The relative ease with which digital information can flow creates a potential for organizational leaks. Businesses and other organizations often keep their information on computer, in digital form. Employees, vendors, or others with some relationship to the organization may be given access to the digital information. As a condition for gaining access, these people generally have to agree not to disclose the information outside of the organization. However, information sometimes does leak out of the company, either through error or malice.
One way that information leaks from the company is when a person with access to the information captures a screen shot that contains the information. For example, a software company might be testing a new on-line service, and might give access to a test version of the service only to certain employees. An employee might capture a screen shot and post the screen shot on a blog. In some cases, the employee might be confused about whether he or she was allowed to publicize what was shown on the screen. In other cases, the employee may be executing his or her own private agenda. Either way, the company may want to trace the source of the leak, either to impose consequences on the employee or as a way of deterring future leaks.